King of Queens' Reign to End in May

Thu., Dec. 21, 2006 10:23 PM PST by Natalie Finn

CBS is taking back the keys to the castle in Queens.

The network has announced that the latest season of The King of Queens will also be its last.

Now in its ninth year, the blue-collar family comedy is currently the longest-running sitcom on television, taking over the title this year when Will & Grace and That '70s Show left the airwaves.

While the series, centering on UPS driver Doug (Kevin James), his hard-working wife Carrie (Leah Remini) and her eccentric father (Jerry Stiller), largely flew under the radar, airing on Monday nights alongside Emmy favorite Everybody Loves Raymond, it was a steady presence for CBS over the years.

The first episode of the show's two-episode ninth-season premiere on Dec. 6, despite being in a foreign Wednesday-at-8 p.m. time slot, attracted 9.4 million viewers, with the second half-hour gaining 700,000 pairs of eyes.

Proving that at least a few things are still working after almost a decade, The King of Queens also received its first Emmy nomination this year, a Best Actor nod for James, the portly star whose onscreen marriage to Remini put him in the According to Jim club of "How did he get her?" sitcom unions.

(FYI, According to Jim is still technically on the air as well, but ABC is saving it for midseason.)

The King of Queens flirted with cancellation earlier in the year, finally receiving a 13-episode renewal for 2006-07. The show is slated to head back to Monday nights at 9:30 p.m. on Apr. 9, where it will ride out the rest of its existence on the tails of Two and a Half Men, which is still frequently the only sitcom to break into the Nielsen ratings' top 25 each week.

But at least The King of Queens will be able to make a graceful exit after a good run. It's hard out there for a sitcom these days.

A number of this season's freshman comedies are long gone (Fox couldn't get Happy Hour off the air fast enough; NBC didn't foresee Twenty Good Years), while the ones that remain are hanging on for dear life (ABC's Help Me, Help You probably won't be back after a winter hiatus; NBC moved 30 Rock to Thursdays in hopes that those who appreciate The Office's brand of wit will finally embrace Tina Fey's dry humor).

CBS also had to shuffle its Monday prime-time lineup a bit to fit The King of Queens back in.

Sophomore show The New Adventures of Old Christine will go on hiatus after its Jan. 29 broadcast to allow seven episodes of the brand-new relationship comedy The Rules of Engagement to fill its 9:30 p.m. spot on Mondays.

Then, first-year sitcom The Class will have its season finale Mar. 5, after which The New Adventures of Old Christine will move into its 8:30 p.m. slot, allowing The King of Queens its post-Two and a Half Men perch once The Rules of Engagement winds up.

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How I Met Your Mother and Two and a Half Men will stay put in the meantime. It's just everything else that's changing.

"These scheduling moves enable us to program more original episodes of comedy in targeted time periods for the remainder of the season," CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler said Thursday. "It also provides an opportunity to give The King of Queens a proper send-off in a high-profile time period in the Monday night block it helped build."